11 April 2014

SouthWesting: Way South (for me)

Currently, we are driving down the 469 from Logan to SanJon, New Mexico. The flat, wide open
spaces are covered with brush and maybe former grasslands. As we’ve been driving, we’ve suddenly come
upon surprising canyons with rivers as well as come out to great views. It’s surprising to me that we are not on sea
level when cruising these plains. Today
we are heading to Oklahoma via Palo Duro Canyon in Texas (near Amarillo).

After spending a solid 5 days at the family ranch, Rancho
Escondido, in Golondrinas, this excursion is quite refreshing even though I
miss the cool weather in the high desert with the cliffs on either side of our
dwelling by the Mora River. Although a
good chunk of time was spent there, we didn’t really get to explore but for a
couple days. Over the weekend, I was as
sick as I’ve been in a long time. My
family really took care of me and fed me all kinds of New Mexican feasts! We arrived with dear friends from California
– Jill and family – and that afternoon we wandered to the cave and around the
land. I had mostly told Jill the ranch
stories in our decade long correspondence, and I think for both of us, it was
like seeing a storybook of good friends on magic land become reality. After Jill’s departure, I just let myself
sleep, and the snowy weather seemed to support this decision. Eventually, I made my way out of the house,
and in the last couple days, we bicycled around Golondrinas and then explored
Vegas, high point having a beer at the Plaza Hotel that my family used to own.

Although it felt good to write in big letters “sick day” on
the calendar, I also felt the pressure to complete the small tasks I’ve put off
in the last month while editing my dissertation. Today marks almost two weeks since that last
deadline, and in these two weeks, I’ve really been able to get some things
accomplished. This morning I wrote a
list:

Additionally,
I found out that another of my poems, “Tita Tells Me,” has been accepted for
publication in a lovely Filipina anthology on intergenerational Fil-Ams.

Altogether,
I’ve been writing creatively and water-coloring and really, I guess, marketing
my work to different groups out there that connect with my themes and
purposes. I’ve written a couple
different short bios and artistic intentions.
Perhaps the one I will share on this blog are from the school testimonial.

Before entering the Women’s Spirituality
program at CIIS, Cristina was a writing teacher at CSU, Long Beach. Along with teaching at CSULB, she also worked
as an interfaith chaplain and helped to coordinate, at the Women’s Resource
Center (WRC) on campus, a project to end violence towards women students.

She had studied English Women’s Literature
for her BA and MA, and she was trying to figure out the next step for
herself. Decreasing funds for teachers
and project coordinators on campus were forcing many of her colleagues to leave
California, and Cristina thought it was probably a good time to go back to
school. Her own personal life
circumstances also encouraged her to make a change with her life.

“Being a lover of literature, I escaped
into books and pretended that the traumas of life didn’t exist. I didn’t know how to live in reality, and
after being trained as a sexual assault crisis counselor with the WRC, I realized
I had been living in a rape culture all along.
I realized violence was normal in my daily life, and I decided I had had
enough.”

One of Cristina’s mentors at the WRC told
her about the PhD program in Women’s Spirituality at CIIS. At the same time, Cristina was invited to
co-coordinate a farm community with four other women. She decided to enter the WSE program as a
semi-distance student.

“It was perfect. I worked on the farm all
day – weeding and harvesting – and then I worked on my papers on ecofeminist
thought! Before entering the PhD
program, I had no idea that women and
the Earth were an integral part of women’s spirituality! That year turned out
all kinds of synergy.”

Finishing her first year and writing, in
that, a paper on her motherline, Cristina decided it was time to explore her Xicana
and Filipina ancestral lineage. While
completing her coursework, she traveled to New Mexico and the Philippines. She was able to meet and learn from her
personal role models, including Leny Strobel, Cherrie Moraga, and Ana
Castillo. And through WSE, she worked
as Ana Castillo’s Teaching Assistant. Cristina
connected with scholars in the fields of mestiza discourse, pedagogies of the
sacred, and indigenous Filipina epistemologies.

“Suddenly I was writing a dissertation that
brought together my love of literature as well as acknowledged the painful
experiences in myself, my ancestors, and my communities due to racism and
colonization as well as sexism and patriarchy.”

As Cristina wrote her dissertation, she
also developed her creative writing and has had a few of her pieces published
in anthologies such as Mujeres de Maiz:
Ofrendas of the Flesh and Verses
Typhoon Yolanda: A Storm of Filipino Poets.

Cristina is currently working to complete
her dissertation. Check out her
progress at cristyroses.blogspot.com.

Cristina Golondrina

Cristina holds a doctorate in Philosophy and Religion. She is a multiethnic women of color. Sometimes she is read as white, sometimes racially identified as “non-white/other.” She is a writer and artist exploring the themes she analyzed in her dissertation: themes of being mixed race, multilocational, and the affects of racism and colonialism in her body, in her writing, and in the literature she reads.